Description of Salinimonas profundi sp. nov., a deep-sea bacterium harboring a transposon Tn6333.

A Gram-staining-negative bacterium, strain HHU 13199T, was isolated from a marine sediment sample collected from South China Sea (119°19.896'E, 19°41.569'N) at a depth of 2918 m. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that strain HHU 13199T represents a member of the genus Salinimonas with the highest sequence similarity (99.8%) to the type strain S. iocasae KX18D6T. However, the average nucleotide identity values and digital DNA-DNA hybridization between strain HHU 13199T and closely related members of the genus Salinimonas were all below the cut-off level (95-96 % and 70%, respectively) for species delineation. This strain grew with sea salt of 0.5-18% (w/v) (optimum, 2-5%), but no growth observed when using NaCl instead. The major fatty acids are C16:0, summed feature 3 (C16:1ω7c and/or C16:1ω6c), and summed feature 8 (C18:1ω7c and/or C18:1ω6c). The predominant isoprenoid quinone is ubiquinone-8. The polar lipids mainly consist of phosphatidylethanolamine, and phosphatidylglycerol. Genomic characterization revealed that strain HHU 13199T harbors a distinct type I-F CRISPR-Cas system and plenty of genes associated with heavy metal resistance, including a transposon (Tn6333) conferring mercury resistance. In addition, a phylogenetic tree based on the bac120 core genes suggested that the genus Salinimonas should be a subclade within Alteromonas. On the basis of the phenotypic, phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic characterizations, strain HHU 13199T represents a novel species of the genus Salinimonas, for which the name Salinimonas profundi sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HHU 13199T (= KCTC 72837T = MCCC 1K04127T).